


mystery man

by Quillium



Series: natsume week 2k19 [7]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen, Tumblr: Natsume Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 17:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19728652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillium/pseuds/Quillium
Summary: “Would you at least tell me your name?” Touko asks, hands on her hips.“You’ll know it,” he leans forward and kisses her cheek, “You’ll finally get to see me age, you know.”





	mystery man

**Author's Note:**

> This was so self indulgent, I have no excuses.

He first appears when Touko is young and just had her flower crown stomped on.

“It’s alright,” he says. He’s tall, lean, in his late twenties, and there’s something strange about him that makes Touko trust him despite being told not to trust strangers. “Here, I’ve got something even better.”

He pulls a smooth blue stone from his pocket and puts it in her hand.

Touko rubs her eyes, “It’s just a rock.”

“It’s a magic rock. It’ll make sure that even if bad things happen, you will have the strength to handle it.”

“I don’t want bad things to happen.”

“I know, Touko-san. This rock will make sure that after any bad thing that happens, something good will happen.”

“Like I got a magic rock because my flower crown broke?”

“Exactly,” he smiles, “And we can make a new flower crown together, right?”

Touko wipes away the last of her tears and nods, determined, “Yeah.”

So they do.

__

He appears steadily as she grows up, and it doesn’t strike her until she’s twelve to ask, “Who are you?”

He looks surprised that she’s asking and answers mysteriously, “A friend.”

“A friend?” Touko huffs, “That’s it? That’s such a bad answer. Are you planning to kidnap me or something?”

“No, no,” he laughs, “I just—it’s not the best decision to give you my name.”

“Are you a criminal on the run?”

“No, not exactly. It’s just—“ he smiles a bit, “You’ll have to wait a while to meet me.”

“I’ve already met you, stupid.”

“Don’t call people stupid, Touko-san,” he pokes her cheek, “You’ll understand someday. Don’t worry, it’s only for a moment.”

“What does that mean, though?”

He shakes his head and remains mysterious.

__

She’s sixteen and sitting on the steps waiting for a date who will never show.

He appears with a rose in hand that he picks the stem off of and tucks into her hair, “You still have that stone?” he asks, “The one I gave you when we first met?”

Touko taps her necklace, where she’s hung the stone from a string.

“You’ll meet someone better,” he says, “Someone who loves you unconditionally and makes bad jokes and thinks you’re the best person ever. You’ll fall in love and marry and it will be perfect.”

“Don’t say that if you don’t know it’s true,” Touko cries, “Don’t give me false hope like that.”

“It isn’t false,” he says softly, “I can’t tell you his name but it’s true. You’ll grow old together and he’ll be your other half. You’ll complete each other.”

She wants it so badly that she aches for it. “Nobody else wants a family,” she says, “Everyone wants a job that’s important, or they want to travel. I just want a quiet life. It’s stupid, right?”

“No,” he answers, “Not if that makes you happy.”

“It does,” she says, “I want something peaceful.”

“You’ll have it,” he promises.

And stupid as it is, sixteen and ditched by her date, she believes him.

__

Touko is twenty when she brings up the fact that he doesn’t age. “I thought you just aged well,” she says, “But it’s not that, is it?”

“No,” he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, “Are you studying hard?”

“Yes.”

“Not pushing yourself too hard? Getting enough sleep?”

“Yes, _mom_.”

He laughs quietly at that, and says, “You’re amazing, Touko-san.”

“Why do you call me that? You’re older than me. We’ve known each other for a while.”

“Because one day,” he says, “You’ll be older than me.”

“What does that mean? Are you even real?”

“Of course I’m real,” he snorts, and touches her necklace, “As real as the stone I gave you.”

__

She falls in love with Shigeru when she turns thirty, and she hopes this is it because he’s kind and a good listener and all the things the man told her she’d have one day.

“Is it him?” she asks, watching as he reads through the titles on her bookshelf, expression fond.

“How does he make you feel?” he asks instead of telling Touko the answer.

“Why can’t you just tell me?”

“Against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“The ones that I can’t tell you,” he smiles at her teasingly.

Touko huffs, “he makes me feel like—I _want_ him to be the one.”

“Then make him the one. Your fate is something you choose, Touko-san.”

So she goes for it. And she marries Shigeru, falls head over heels and he’s right, this is it.

__

“Mystery man!” Shigeru exclaims, “You don’t—you never appear in front of other people, though!”

“Touko-san is an exception,” he smiles, “The two of you are the exceptions.”

“Why?” Touko asks.

He hums and shrugs, “Who knows.”

And it’s only once he leaves that Touko notices the orange stone on the anklet that Shigeru wears.

“It’s for joy,” Shigeru explains.

Touko holds out her necklace and smiles, “It’s for peace.”

__

“I won’t visit like this anymore,” he says, suddenly, when Touko is older and grey and he is still young and small. “But you’ll see me again.”

“Would you at least tell me your name?” Touko asks, hands on her hips.

“You’ll know it,” he leans forward and kisses her cheek, “You’ll finally get to see me age, you know.”

Touko narrows her eyes, “What?”

__

Then she meets Natsume Takashi.

Oh, she doesn’t understand at first. They look similar, of course—but she brushes that off to coincidence.

Then Takashi has a nightmare and she gives him the stone. It feels right.

And Takashi grows older and graduates and gets a job and when he turns 26, Touko suddenly understands.

“It was you,” she says, quietly, when he comes home one day without the necklace she gave him, “Who gave it to me. That’s why you don’t have it anymore.”

“I knew you’d figure it out,” he kisses her cheek, and her mystery man isn’t a mystery anymore, just her boy, here, kind and gentle and hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really grateful that I got to do this. Sorry for being late on this one.


End file.
